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Thought I’d give you all a quick run through build of a large Bowie I completed not long ago for a fund raiser for a co-workers daughter who is fighting leukemia.

I'm the first to admit I'm not the best knife builder in the world, so use these steps at your own risk. Also, there are more ways to make a knife than there are to skin a cat, fyi... This is the hyper-speed rough draft version of this build.

First off is design. For me, the biggest step in success when building a knife is making a plan. I like to get a solid blue print of what I have planned in my mind.





The next few steps are getting the metal annealed or drawn back to make the metal softer for easier working on. I chose ATS 34 stainless steel which is a very high quality Japanese steel. Stainless is very good about air quenching itself and re-hardening if it cools off too fast, which is pretty slow actually, so the annealing process took 40 hours of programming my kiln to get the metal slowly cooled off from 1600 degrees. Next I transfer the design to the metal and get it profiled and the rough grind in. Also the spine was hand filed for decoration.







The next next step is the hardening process. For this I took the steel (after wrapping in heat treating foil) to 1900 degrees Fahrenheit, then took the blank and quickly clamped it between 2 aluminum blocks and hit it, edge side first, with compressed air. It’s called an air quench and it got the blank hard enough my 65 HRC file wouldn’t touch it, nor any file in my shop for that matter.







It took another 40 hours of time and other kiln programming to temper the blade to get it around 60 HRC after sanding off the scale. I very slowly cooled it down from 410 degrees 2 times to get it to right around 60 HRC.







The next step is many hours of hand sanding to get the blade flats, flat, and making sure the blade geometry lends itself to be the most efficient for blade design and use. Also getting all the scratches running blade length and down to 600 grit.





Continued.....

The next steps are onto the guard. I used regular wrought iron for the guard. I have a mini mill for this purpose. It still takes a while but it is much faster than hand filing the slot. It still takes a bit of hand filing. It’s important to not settle for anything less than perfect with this. If it isn’t a perfect fit, it goes in the trash and I'll start over.




The guard is also pressed on for rigidity and it helps visually for the fit & finish.



Next is guard shaping. It’s hard to get it all symmetrical and looking good. I ended up modifying the guard design from my blue print a bit. I thought the S shape really looked nice on the knife.



The next part is lots of sanding and finishing the guard. The guard is then pressed on and JB Welded onto the tang. The handle and the pressing is where it gets it rigidity, the JB weld just securely holds it perfectly into place while the handle work is completed.



The next part is the hardest part for me. That is getting the handle material fit fairly snuggly to the tang. You don’t want a lot of void in your handle for structural purposes. For me, it’s lots of hand scraping with little drilling to get a good flush fit. I used a hybrid Babinga Burl/ Epoxy Resin handle. Very beautiful but very expensive. No room for mistakes too big to fix budget wise. The spacer is solid Buffalo horn.



The next steps are rough shaping the handle and pinning it. The metal is hardened so I had to drill the handle, mark the tang and mill the hole to the pin size with a carbide mill. Meanwhile keeping a perfect fit through it all.



continued....

Then it’s final shaping, filing, then polishing everything getting ready for final glue.







Then it’s final glue, but first I go back over the blade, guard and handle and make sure everything is pretty well finished before being epoxied/welded together. I also grind teeth into the tang to give the commercial epoxy more surface are to bind to. I mask every part of the knife and glue it up.



After a bit of clean up, the knife is pretty well done.







Continued...

Then it's on to leather. I will save/spare you the details of that build but it is another build in and of itself.

Here is the final product.









Thanks for following along,

Todd

Great looking knife! Thanks for the pics.

Thanks for helping out the gal!!

Great post. Thanks for all of it. Stout lookin’ cuttin’ iron too.

Yep! Good on you!

And I like any good looking Bowie Knife! 🤠

Though I don't understand your posts on heat treat... (would like to discuss offline later)...Good on you for what you're doing for your coworker's daughter. Makes me tear up...

Thank you all!

Journeyman, message sent…

Todd

Fine looking knife. Thanks for posting

Good on ya for helping the girl-- hope all goes well for her.

I wish I could do that! Great job, good for you on helping out the the girl!

"I will save/spare you the details of that build but it is another build in and of itself."

Please don't "spare us the details"...that was great! I would like to see the sheath build. Thanks for taking us along.

Very nice knife for a very good cause. I was getting tired just reading about all the work you had to do!

very cool! Love the sheath too

That turned out really nice!

Damn nice work!

Outstanding post! Thanks for taking the time.

Thank you all. It was a fun build.

Todd

Great post! Thanks for sharing.

And some people question why custom knives are so expensive.